Happy New Year! In these first days of 2011, I wish you health, strong relationships, emotional awareness, peace, empathy, compassion, humor, meaningful work, and excellent rest! So many of us went through upheavals in 2010 that I think we could all use a rest and a break. Here’s a strange idea: Let’s befriend anxiety!
I’ve been thinking a lot about fear and anxiety this month, and I’ve got a question and a request for you. I heard an interesting interview last month on the radio show Forum with Michael Krasny. Michael spoke with Dr. Mary Lamia, who is a psychoanalyst and psychologist working here in Northern California. She wrote a book called Understanding Myself: A Kid’s Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings. It looks like a really good book for kids, and Dr. Lamia has some very interesting things to say.
In the latter part of the interview, Dr. Lamia spoke about anxiety in a way I haven’t heard before, and I’ve been mulling it over a great deal. She sees anxiety as the emotion that helps us take action and get things done. I knew that about fear (the question for fear is: What action must be taken?”), and in the fear chapter in The Language of Emotions, I focus on the very positive aspects of fear. However, I sort of push anxiety off to the side because, honestly, it bugs me when people run around being anxious. I just want them to calm down and focus themselves. You know, just take a deep breath why dontcha?
Putting it off versus doing it ahead of time
Dr. Lamia contrasts procrastinators, who put things off until their anxiety kicks in and makes them do their work with do-it-aheaders, who do their work ahead of time. I’m a do-it-aheader, and we’ve got a joke in our family about thanking Karla from the past. We’ll find some job I finished weeks ago, or unearth finished pieces to a project that is crucial, or we’ll find important papers in my filing system, and we’ll say, “Thanks, Karla from the past, for making things easy on us!” Clearly, this thanking is a great motivator, because in each day, I think of all kinds of cool projects and jobs to do for the future happiness of my friends, my family, and myself. It’s a total win-win. It’s time travel that works!
Before I heard Dr, Lamia, I would have said that I didn’t do anxiety, but now I’m realizing, “Ooohhhh, I’ve got plenty of anxiety, but I’ve been been responding to it at very early points in its appearance, so it rarely gets to the level of a mood.” I have mistakenly thought of my very subtle level of do-it-ahead anxiety as, I don’t know, conscience, foresight, responsibility, or perhaps just being organized. I missed the fact that I was feeling an emotion that was trying to prepare me for the future. Whoops!! We live and learn, so I’m now taking anxiety out of the shadows and asking it questions, looking at people who run anxiety in its mood state, and focusing on anxiety more clearly.
Holidays can be wonderful, but they can also be difficult if family or work relationships are strained. During the holidays, I see many people respond to difficult relationships by isolating themselves (or wishing they could), and I’d like to suggest a different tactic: gossip.
Imaginal things, on the other hand, are useful ideas you create to comprehend the world and other people. Similes and metaphors are imaginal devices that can help you compare something real to something unrelated (for instance: My employee acts like a skittish horse when I give her a new chore, or My manager’s anger is like a whirlwind). If your simile is very skillful and apt, you may be able to organize your perceptions and perhaps even change your behavior based on the strength of the comparison.